For the purpose of achieving stable power supply and energy conservation, there is a need for introducing electric power devices such as a photovoltaic power generation (PV) system, a storage battery, and a fuel cell in a large-scale facility such as a building or a factory, or an individual home.
While stable power supply and energy conservation can be promoted by causing such electric power devices to operate as planned, it takes users much time and labor to manage the operation schedule.
Accordingly, in recent years, an energy management system (EMS) that integrally manages the operation state of electric power devices connected to a power grid has been introduced (for example, see Patent Literature 1).
The EMS is a system that structures a communications network with the electric power devices being the management target. By the EMS monitoring and controlling the electric power devices through information communication via the network, the power use amount is visualized and energy conservation is promoted. For example, as shown in FIG. 2, the conventional EMSs can be broadly divided as follows based on the management target:
HEMS (Home Energy Management System);
BEMS (Building Energy Management System);
FEMS (Factory Energy Management System); and
CEMS (Community Energy Management System).
As represented by the prefix of each EMS, the HEMS is home-oriented; the BEMS is commercial building-oriented; the FEMS is factory-oriented; and the CEMS is oriented to the entire community including the foregoing facilities.
While the EMSs differ from each other in the management target, they are mostly identical in the basic control content, which is, monitoring and controlling power demand and power supply.